Restaurant in Pachuca de Soto, Mexico
La Liste-ranked. Worth the trip from CDMX.
Sotero Cocina de Oficio is Pachuca de Soto's strongest case for a destination meal, holding La Liste recognition in 2025 and 2026 with a 4.6 Google rating from over 1,300 reviews. The kitchen works the Regional Mexican format seriously in a city with little competition at this level. Booking is easy, the timing flexibility is real, and the regional drinks context — pulque country — adds genuine depth.
Sotero Cocina de Oficio earned 87.5 points on La Liste 2025 and 76 points in 2026, placing it among a small group of Mexican restaurants with genuine international recognition outside Mexico City. If you are planning a visit to Pachuca de Soto and want one serious meal, this is where to go. Booking is currently easy by the standards of the category, so there is no reason to delay if you have dates in mind.
Sotero sits at Dr. Manuel del Corral 101 in the Real de Minas neighbourhood of Pachuca, a city better known as a gateway to Hidalgo's mining history than as a dining destination. That positioning matters: this is a regional Mexican kitchen operating at award-recognised standards in a city where the competition at that level is thin. For the explorer who travels specifically to eat, that gap between local context and kitchen ambition is part of the appeal.
The cuisine type is listed as Regional Mexican, which in Hidalgo means proximity to ingredients and traditions that do not make it onto Mexico City menus with any regularity. Pachuca and the broader Hidalgo region carry a culinary identity tied to pasteurised cheesemaking, barbacoa cooked underground, pulque, and dried chiles from the valley. A kitchen operating under the "Cocina de Oficio" framing — roughly, craft cooking — signals an intention to treat those regional materials seriously rather than as a backdrop for modernist technique. The 4.6 rating across 1,301 Google reviews confirms this reads well beyond a single demographic or occasion type.
Hidalgo is pulque country. If Sotero's drinks program reflects its regional mandate as precisely as its kitchen does, pulque-based preparations and local agave spirits are the drinks to pursue here rather than a conventional wine list. Pulque , the fermented sap of the maguey plant , is produced in the valleys around Pachuca and rarely survives transport in its fresh form, making Pachuca one of the few places in Mexico where you drink it at its leading. A regional Mexican restaurant at this level that ignores that provenance would be missing something. Confirm current drinks offerings directly when booking, as no specific menu data is available, but orienting your order toward local ferments and agave-based drinks is the right instinct.
Pachuca sits at roughly 2,400 metres above sea level, giving it a temperate, dry climate for most of the year. The most comfortable months for visiting are March through May and September through November, avoiding the peak summer rainy season and the Christmas-period crowds that fill Hidalgo's heritage sites. For the meal itself, a weekday lunch booking tends to be more relaxed than weekend dinner service at restaurants operating at this recognition level across Mexico. If you are pairing the meal with Pachuca's silver mining heritage , the Real del Monte area is worth an afternoon , a Saturday lunch works well logistically.
See the comparison section below for how Sotero positions against other recognised Mexican restaurants. For a broader view of where to eat across Mexico, our full Pachuca de Soto restaurants guide is the right starting point. If you are building an itinerary around the wider region, our Pachuca de Soto bars guide covers where to drink, and our hotels guide covers where to stay. For context on what serious regional Mexican cooking looks like across the country, Levadura de Olla in Oaxaca and KOLI Cocina de Origen in Monterrey are useful reference points from their respective regions. Alcalde in Guadalajara and Pangea in San Pedro Garza Garcia operate at a similar award-tier and give a sense of what La Liste recognition looks like in practice across Mexico's secondary cities.
| Venue | Cuisine | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sotero Cocina de Oficio | Regional Mexican | La Liste Top Restaurants (2026): 76pts; La Liste Top Restaurants (2025): 87.5pts | Easy | — |
| Pujol | Mexican | Michelin 2 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Quintonil | Modern Mexican, Contemporary | Michelin 2 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Rosetta | Italian, Creative | Michelin 1 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Em | Mexican | Michelin 1 Star | Unknown | — |
| Le Chique | Mexican, Contemporary | Michelin 1 Star | Unknown | — |
A quick look at how Sotero Cocina de Oficio measures up.
Pachuca has a thin bench of La Liste-calibre restaurants, which is precisely what makes Sotero's 87.5-point 2025 score notable. For comparable regional Mexican ambition closer to Mexico City, Quintonil and Rosetta both hold La Liste recognition and are more accessible for booking. If the draw is Hidalgo specifically, Sotero is the only restaurant in the state with this level of international recognition.
Sotero is a regional Mexican kitchen with documented La Liste credentials — 87.5 points in 2025 — located in the Real de Minas neighbourhood of Pachuca at Dr. Manuel del Corral 101. Pachuca sits roughly 2,400 metres above sea level and is about 90 minutes northeast of Mexico City. This is not a casual drop-in; the Cocina de Oficio format signals a craft-focused kitchen, so arriving with that expectation is worth the trip.
Nothing in the available data rules solo dining out, and regional Mexican kitchens at this level often have counter or bar seating that suits solo guests well. Contacting the restaurant directly before your visit is advisable given the lack of published booking information. Solo diners making a specific trip to Pachuca for Sotero are probably committed enough to confirm details in advance.
Specific menu items aren't documented in the available data, so no dish-level recommendations can be made here without guessing. What is documented is the regional mandate: Sotero's name translates to a craft-focused kitchen, and Hidalgo is pulque country, so regionally rooted drinks and ingredients are a reasonable expectation. Ask the team for the kitchen's current focus when you arrive.
A restaurant with La Liste recognition at 87.5 points in 2025 is a credible special-occasion choice, particularly for someone who values regional Mexican cooking over the Mexico City circuit. The Pachuca location makes it a genuine destination dinner rather than a convenient booking, which can itself make the occasion feel more deliberate. If proximity matters, Pujol or Quintonil in CDMX are easier to reach for the same tier of occasion.
No published booking window is available in the current data, but a La Liste-ranked restaurant in a smaller city like Pachuca can fill faster than you'd expect once word is out. Booking at least two to three weeks ahead is a reasonable baseline; contacting them directly is the only confirmed route since no phone or website is listed publicly at this time.
Bar seating isn't confirmed in the available data. Given Hidalgo's pulque culture and the regional focus of the kitchen, a drinks program at the bar would make sense — but whether walk-in bar dining is an option is not documented. Confirm with the restaurant before making plans around it.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
